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Dyarchy ties up at St Barbe Museum – July 2017

Built for Roger Pinkney in 1938 her maiden voyage was delayed by six years of worldwide turmoil, the next thirty Dyarchy spent cruising from Lymington or ashore in Roger’s garden at Kings Salterns Lane.

In 1919 Roger entered the office of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott working on several of Scott’s major buildings, including Ampleforth Abbey, Battersea Power Station and Liverpool Catherdral. In 1964, after Scott’s death, the Liverpool Cathedral Committee decided that they could not proceed with his 1942 design for the completion of the west end of the cathedral, and Pinckney collaborated with Scott’s former office manager, F.G.Thomas, in an alternative design which more than halved the projected cost, enabling the completion of the cathedral to take place in 1978.

The C13 Parish Church of St Thomas the Apostle in Roger’s home town of Lymington enjoyed refurbishment of the sacristy in 1980-1981 and construction of a new church hall all to Roger’s designs. Forty years earlier and in payment to Jack Giles Dyarchy’s designer Roger created a Regency style low country house which Giles built at Woodside in the parish. This was one of many small country houses in Hampshire and Sussex which were designed by Pinckney in a Lutyens style. His own house in Lymington was built in 1921, and occupied jointly with his mother, who was his companion in sailing, the other passion of his life.

They jointly captained a Bristol Channel pilot cutter, also named Dyarchy, and in 1938 Pinckney commissioned a yacht, to be called Dyarchy, built in Sweden to designs by Jack Laurent Giles, she became one of the most admired and photographed yachts of its time. In order to supervise construction, Pinckney learnt Swedish, and designed the interior himself. He was considered to be technically one of the finest sailors of his time, although he thought it boring to go out of sight of land. He was Rear-Commodore, and later Commodore, of the Royal Cruising Club,.

Eighty years after her conception Dyarchy continues life in Trieste on the Italian Adriatic coast however this summer she will once again be on view in Lymington and we are grateful to St Barbe Museum who have kindly agreed to display a detailed scale model of Dyarchy which will be on view, close by another treasure – the recently discovered Boldre Hoard.

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About Laurent Giles

The design practice developed 'between the First and Second World Wars' and 'post war' years into a thriving racing and cruisung yacht design house, specialising in sound design and engineering solutions to challenging client briefs.

At a time when the business of racing and cruising yacht design was developing... and throughout this important period the Laurent Giles design practice is recognised as being among the leaders, if not the leader in the development and use of new yacht design and construction technologies. Between 1939 and 45 he was first in charge of the Small Boats (up to 100ft) Design Section of the Department of Naval Construction, and later he served in Washington D.C. on aircraft construction.